The Morning After
by Father Vengeance
Summary: Okay, so I've capitulated to creating a one-shot post-ep. Honestly, if any episode could inspire one it would be that finale. Kinda silly, so fair warning.


Richard Castle dreamt of being lost in a cherry orchard. It was innocuous enough despite the element of displacement. Mostly he just walked; unhurried, unconcerned, and mildly confused. It was a late-spring afternoon in that unfamiliar place. The sun was confiding warmth against his back and shoulders, and shone from out an unblemished sky. He paused now and again to gaze down the impossible lengths between each row of trees until they blurred together at the apex of visual acuity. It seemed as though he wandered in such a manner for hours.

Every once in awhile Richard thought he heard a sound that did not belong; a brief, soft whimper. It was a feminine voice. He fretted about the well-being of its owner. When the sounds arose they were accompanied by sudden, persistent breezes. Millions of stark white blossom petals were torn free and spiraled crazily. They rolled in waves across the fields of trees. He was inundated by them each time, a chaotic whirlwind of softness and scent. It was unaccountably disquieting, more so than seemed appropriate even for a lost man.

The next time the noise came, consciousness swiftly followed.

Traces of pre-dawn light filtered through opaque, smart-glass windows which comprised the master bedroom's west-facing wall. Rick squinted in the gloom, swallowed thickly as awareness stretched itself out across his mind. Just enough light was present to delineate the curved line of Kate's left shoulder and the unruly curls of her hair. The sight, and subsequent recognition, swept all remnants of the dream right out of his head.

Castle was smiling before he could manually set his lips to the task. The author nuzzled comfortably into his pillow and brought one hand up to rest beneath his head, flattening the fabric at his cheek to provide a clear view. There she was: Katherine Beckett—snoozing with her bare back to him, tangled from the waist down in midnight-blue Egyptian linen. As he watched, his lover shifted in her sleep to a position more accommodating to healthy blood-flow.

Then she made the noise again and cut his celebration short.

Awake and aware, he immediately recognized it for what it was: pain. Beckett hurt, and when she moved it flared to life, delving even into the depths of her dreams. Still she slept, and that was fitting really. The woman was too stubborn to indulge a moment's weakness even while unburdened by consciousness.

Richard's brow creased with concern and his lips formed a line of displeasure. As if drawn by his distress—more likely his prodigious body heat—Kate shifted again, sliding backwards into him until the curves of her derriere melded lightly to the lines of his middle. She stilled there, firmly lost to the waking world again.

The novelist meant to be still. He did.

It was with some surprise that he felt the fingers of his free hand alight upon her back. It was with mild bemusement that he felt them rising slowly against her skin. Well, since it was happening anyway, he lost himself in counting her vertebrae by that ghostly light touch, one by one. Time lost definitive proportions. If not for the slowly expanding light it would have forsaken any meaning at all.

He judged his distraction at half-an-hour when Kate made another soft sound—not pain this time.

"Mmm. Castle?"

_Who else would it be_, he thought, somewhat petulantly. But he answered with a brief rumble of confirmation.

"Got a body," she mumbled, the words nearly indistinguishable.

_You sure do, Kate_. _You sure do_.

"Are you in?"

Confused, and more than slightly distracted, he asked foolishly, "Am I in…your body?"

Beckett turned with a groan of protest and her eyes slid open. She frowned at him, and then blinked those deep green pools in confusion. An unexpected smile awoke and she birthed a single note of vocal amusement. "Oh. Hi."

"Dreaming of working?" he guessed, and she nodded in reply. "That has to be a sign of a workaholic."

Her amusement wavered some even as he spoke. The reality of their circumstances looked to be settling onto her shoulders again like an iron yoke. Still, an attempt of a smile flirted briefly with the corners of her mouth.

Kate had brought him up to speed on her circumstances at the precinct—after they'd _savaged_ the definition of their relationship as it had been up to that point. They talked some, quietly in bed, until the words and the chill of uncertainty gave way to his hesitant, comforting caresses. She was lulled into slumber, and he followed soon after, but each of them only briefly. They awoke in unison a couple hours later as if roused by some inaudible external alarm. They found each other unerringly in the darkness and made love again. If the first coupling could be likened to the eruption of a too-long dormant volcano, the second would be aptly comparable to the rivers of lava flowing from it; utterly consuming, blissfully deliberate, and equally undeniable.

"It's our first morning waking up together," Richard observed presently, and bounced his toes against the bottom of her feet excitedly a few times beneath the sheets. He flapped his eyelashes at her in a series of sappy, love-struck blinks.

Beckett closed her eyes and smiled. She gave a sleepy, throaty chuckle that was hauntingly attractive.

"Actually, I've been diligently working for a while now," he revealed.

"On being creepy, I'm sure," she surmised, and opened her eyes, though they remained narrow with humor.

"No, no. This is serious business. I don't joke about geography."

"Come again?"

Rick opened his mouth to elucidate, but paused and scrutinized her expression carefully.

Kate seemed honestly bemused, and his hesitation lofted her eyebrows slightly. But then she caught what had stalled him and her lips parted around a brief laugh. "Oh man. That's not what I meant, you perv."

"Sure, sure."

She flapped a hand against his chest and demanded lightly, "Explain yourself. I know you've probably been waiting to. I don't want to consider how long."

"Cartography," he answered, and smiled, pleased with the enigmatic reply.

"You've been mapping my body?" Richard couldn't hide how crestfallen he felt about being zeroed in on so quickly, and his lover quivered with another quiet laugh to note it. "I know; I should be a detective, right?" Goodness. She floored him by being able to make a joke like that. Her humored expression couldn't completely hide the visible traces of heartache she obviously bore with the relinquishment of her badge. When his lack of reply became prolonged Beckett pulled the sheet up from her waist to shelter the rest of her figure.

_As if shielding herself_, he mused, _from whatever vulnerability she's about to reveal._

Sure enough his partner continued, "I don't want to talk about it anymore, Castle. Not right now. Except to say… God, I have no idea what else to do with myself. But maybe," she paused, shifted her gaze to view him askance, "maybe it's time to find out. Maybe it's long past time."

"You can do anything," the writer stated, quietly, but ardently. "You're so brilliant, Kate. I can't imagine anything being out of your reach—anything you're passionate about."

"Maybe I'll try my hand at writing."

She managed to say it so seriously. It killed him, and Castle laughed with uncontrolled delight.

"Why's that funny?" Beckett growled mockingly, and flung the sheet aside. She pushed him over onto his back despite resistance and straddled his waist, pinned his wrists against the mattress. "Once upon a time there was a cretin," the former detective dictated, and swooped down, biting his side. She spoke over his yelp, "…who lived in a cave of many disturbing horrors."

"You're the horror," he complained loudly, hissing and trying unsuccessfully to survey his wound.

"Baby."

"The cave has a baby in it? How is that a horror?"

_Yikes_. The glare o' doom was leveled on him. It lost some of its heat though, because she was battling back a smile from being realized. "Local citizenry of the kingdom were afraid of the beast," she continued menacingly. "They cried to the king for aid. They pleaded for protection from the child-stealing monster."

"Hey now, I'm a father. I approve of your attempt to forge continuity, but I would never put another parent through such an ordeal."

"In this story you've lost your way. It's very sad. Now hush."

The timer on the windows went off, distracting the author from a proper retort. He squinted as the smart-glass cleared and unfettered morning light poured in. It lovingly suffused the beige walls and gleamed upon edges of polished furniture.

"The king decreed that he would put a bounty on the monster's head. One so large that it would attract the fiercest warriors to end the threat."

"Was there a period between 'the monster's head' and 'one so large'? It sounded like you used one. That's a fragment—it's not a proper sentence. I'm giving you a mental F-minus."

"F-you and the red pen you rode in on."

"F-me, hrm? Show your audience, Kate—don't tell."

"Oh yes," Beckett went on smoothly. "The beast could be heard all across the countryside that night—howling and roaring, vainly challenging any and all who would deign to end his reign of terror. Villagers quaked in their beds. The king consulted his uneasy ministers and generals."

Rick chuckled, looking back at her again. The amusement died in his throat. "Oh my god, Kate." Her body was beginning to bruise. Splashes of blue and purple were expanding outward from multiple contusions on her flesh. They circled her throat like an obscene necklace; the sonofabitch had choked her. She looked as though she'd been through a war.

"Shhh," she chided, but paused to note his expression. Her gaze lowered to survey her figure and the woman's lips formed a grim line. "Yep," she said, and that was all.

"Yep?" he mimicked, and tried to sit up. "_Yep_?"

Beckett held him firmly, already in an advantageous position to manage the feat.

"Get off of me, damn it!"

"Rick, chill out."

"Your hands," he breathed quietly, mournfully. Her nails were split where they weren't broken. The knuckles were red and scratched. "Jesus, Kate."

"I told you before," she murmured calmly. "It was bad."

"You did," he agreed. "But damn… Doesn't it hurt?"

"Duh."

He just stared, unable to muster the correct reply. Because what hunger it suggested; what terrible hunger she must bear for diving into _them_ to endure such discomfort long enough to play with him. Would he be capable of that in her position? "Oh god, I'm so sorry. I should have been there—

"Don't," Kate growled, and the rawness in her voice drew his blue eyes to her with inexorable force akin to gravity. "If you'd been there, gotten in his way… I've never been as glad as I was then to have had you make a stand against me, Castle. Even when I thought… Even when I was calling for you, I was glad you weren't there to answer. You'll never know how glad."

Richard choked on the words, swallowed, and managed, "You called for me?"

"Of course, dummy. I mean, I was hanging off a ledge like a mock-up of the kitten on that 'Hang in there' poster. Wouldn't you call for me in similar circumstances?"

"Don't make me laugh," he grumbled. "That is goddamned awful."

"But this…" she said, and lowered until their bare chests merged, until her nose was close enough to rub affectionately against his. "…this is magic." She held his gaze, smiled when recollection dawned upon him. "Savor it with me," she coaxed soothingly.

He teetered stubbornly, but she was so beautiful—alive and smiling, and then kissing him briefly. At length he replied grudgingly, "With you and the king and the villagers?"

Kate tugged at his lower lip with her teeth, soothed the flesh with her tongue, and then kissed him again. She leaned back after a time to arch her eyebrows and taunt, "Now who's using fragments?"

"Writer-monkey see, writer-monkey do." She grinned delightedly in reply, and he tipped his chin at her. "More story?"

"Mmm." When her humor was contained, Kate posed, "Where was I?"

"The monster was celebrating a glorious victory over his would-be assassins and wooing the queen—who was proving very susceptible to his bad-boy charms."

"Who's telling this story? Hush."

"Will I sound like a wimp if I admit that your hip bones are starting to hurt?"

"What?"

"They're just…a little pokey."

Eyes narrowed dangerously, she replied, "That better be your deranged version of a euphemism for 'awesomely attractive', jackass." Despite saying so, his partner rose to a straddling position again. She dutifully ignored his dramatic sigh of relief.

"This is why I try to make you _eat_," Rick pointed out.

"Terrified," she announced, slapping lightly at his chest. "That's where we left off. The villagers were quaking and the king was consulting his officials."

"Uh…"

Beckett released an exasperated breath and crossed her arms over her chest. "What _now_?"

"One word: Coffee."

"You can't wait a little longer?"

"What have you done with my partner? You love coffee. I'm shocked you aren't the one to bring it up."

Kate turned her face away pointedly. "I've found a new love."

_Oh god, Ricky, oh god_. _Try not to look like someone watching a meteor careening out of space in a fiery blaze of glory and descending towards their skull!_

Beckett flushed deeply, indicating he must have communicated, well, a decidedly healthy dose of receptiveness. She cleared her throat roughly and said, "I meant storytelling, damn you."

"Uh, yeah. I knew that."

"Shut up," she grumbled, but with more discomfiture than heat.

"Sage advice. And so I shall."

A smile trembled upon her lips, was mirrored in her eyes. "Ah—damn it. You're a hopeless fucking distraction. You know what? Fine. The cretin slew every assassin the king threw at him. He turned out to be a disguised, ruggedly handsome, and sadly misunderstood wizard, who was teaching the children everyone thought were in danger how to fly using ancient magic. The little urchins used their powers to cart the king off to a remote island where he was forced to live in peace for all of his remaining days, and the cretin-slash-wizard-slash-savior shagged the queen senseless every goddamn night thereafter. The end—now get me a coffee, make me some pancakes, and then we'll clear the table so you can help me earn a bruise or two worthy of dialogue."

Richard, trembling with unvoiced laughter, whispered each word as though sharing a secret. "Best. Story. Ever."

* * *

**A/N: Okay, look, I tried to be serious with this. No, I really did. Beckett just doesn't strike me as the hurt/comfort type. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed even though it's wildly out of character. And yes, for those wondering, I am still chipping away at my other stories. It's painfully slow going. This little addition was just a...happy accident. Bless you for prodding though; a reminder now and again is helpful. ;)**


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